David Axelrod

The Obama campaign is in town to rally its fund-raisers and create new ones. Obama senior strategist David Axelrod is here for two meetings with the campaign's fund-raisers, reported yesterday in the New York Post, at which the Obama finance people have been encouraged to show up with friends who are Clinton supporters.

But the push to recruit the opposition is a measured one.  read more »

Intern Em Whitney is on Axelrod watch:

Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod refuted the idea of Hillary Clinton as the Pennsylvania primary underdog this morning in an interview with NPR Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep.

“You had millions of dollars more to spend in Pennsylvania, and Hillary Clinton was able to overcome that when she had to win,” Inskeep said.

“She didn’t have to overcome anything!" Axelrod interjected. "She was 22 points ahead when we began. She ended up winning by about nine points. When we came to Pennsylvania, the first thing we arrived to was a declaration by the Clinton campaign that she was unbeatable," he said.

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The Obama campaign is not exactly acting like a campaign on the verge of a possible double-digit loss.

On a plane ride from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, Obama sat cross-legged, tossing peanuts in his mouth and leafing through a magazine as he chatted with senior adviser David Axelrod across the aisle. A photographer was allowed up from the press section in the back to shoot some photos of Obama and his wife Michelle. Behind the candidate, communications director Robert Gibbs contemplated a crossword puzzle.  read more »

Today Obama campaign manager David Axelrod bluntly accused the Clinton campaign of demonstrating an "insidious pattern" of "wink and nod at offensive statements."

Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams just responded in an emailed statement:

In January, NBC’s Tim Russert confronted Senator Barack Obama with a four page memo from his campaign characterizing statements they claimed the Clinton Campaign had made about race. Asked in hindsight whether he regretted pushing this story, Senator Obama said:  read more »

SAN ANTONIO, Texas—At the end of another day on which Barack Obama failed to deliver the coup de grace to Hillary Clinton’s White House hopes, the Illinois senator spoke to supporters here at an event that was notable mainly for its tepidity.

The crowd was startlingly small, numbering perhaps 1,500. Obama often attracts crowds 10 times as large. His speech was brief—it lasted barely 10 minutes—and featured few of the oratorical fireworks for which he is known.  read more »

The bloodletting between the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was not stanched by the end of last night’s debate in Myrtle Beach. It continued in the spin room.

Ann Lewis continued to talk about Obama’s comments about the trajectory changing force of Republican ideas to a Las Vegas editorial board.

“He said that they were the party of ideas,” she said. “Clearly in contradiction to the Democratic Party.”  read more »

After last night's debate, Barack Obama’s chief adviser David Axelrod assumed the posture of a disappointed observer who was hurt by the Clintons’ decision to go negative.

“They are trying to create doubts. It’s classic strategy,” he said, adding, “I thought one of the telling things Senator Clinton said tonight was let’s not give people 'false hope.' I think that’s a sad thing to say.”

He doubted the jabs she scored on Obama during the debate would have much effect (“I don’t think anything happened here tonight that would have changed the dynamic against us,” he said) but also doubted her new negative approach would penetrate the electorate before election day on the Jan 8.

“That’s one of her problems,” he said. “It takes a while for distortions to sink in.”

He said that “they’ve sent out negative mail,” and, “Today they sent out a negative mail piece and suggested that he is somehow anti-choice, which is absurd.”

It was “the second time they’ve tried this," he said. "They tried it in Iowa, and I think it helped earn then third place. So you’d they’d have learned.”

David Axelrod, Barack Obama's chief strategist, says his campaign is fully prepared for an onslaught of attacks from Hillary Clinton -- and that Obama will not fall victim to them the way Paul Tsongas did in 1992.

"It will be different because we have the means and foundation with which to repel those attacks -- and we're not going to be passive about it," he said, after Obama rallied supporters in Portsmouth.  read more »

Hillary Clinton began one of her last appeals to Iowa voters by lifting Barack Obama’s signature line.

"We are fired up and we are ready to go," she said in the Starlight Building of Davenport’s Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds. Later in her speech, she talked about “hopeful, hopeful programs for the future.”

Whether the imitation was a direct expression of faltering confidence or merely a fatigue-induced slip-up, even some of her genuine admirers in the crowd couldn’t help but notice that things felt a little flat.

“It was kind of a sad contrast,” said Owen Rogal, a 59-year-old English teacher at St. Ambrose University, who had seen Obama speak that morning. “He’s got people walking around in ‘fired up’ t-shirts and I sort of felt he was my high school football coach. He elicited a much more visceral response.”  read more »

DES MOINES, Iowa, Dec. 9—Oprah Winfrey made her long-awaited debut on the campaign trail with Barack Obama yesterday, pulling a crowd estimated by the Obama campaign at around 20,000 to downtown Des Moines despite driving sleet and fierce cold.

Echoing a line of argument regularly used by Mr. Obama to contrast his candidacy with Hillary Clinton’s, Ms. Winfrey said “I’m so tired of politics as usual” and added, “That’s why you seldom see politicians on my show—I only have an hour.”

“We the people,” Ms. Winfrey continued, “recognize that the amount of time you’ve spent in Washington means nothing unless you are accountable for the judgments you make. We need good judgment. We need Barack Obama.”

That sounded, in a campaign setting, very much like a jab at Mrs. Clinton for her 2002 vote authorizing the use of force in Iraq. Moments later, in a rare indication of her own feelings about the war, Ms. Winfrey added that, “Long before it was the popular thing to do, he [Mr. Obama] stood with courage and conviction against this war in Iraq.”

Specific policy questions aside, Ms. Winfrey also waxed lyrical about Mr. Obama, referring to him at one point as “a politician who has an ear for eloquence and a tongue dipped in the unvarnished truth.” She suggested his candidacy makes it possible “to dream America anew again.”  read more »

In sharp contrast to the Clinton campaign, which is showering Wolf Blitzer with praise this morning for his performance moderating last night’s debate, David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s senior advisor, thinks he failed to ask the hard questions.

“I thought it was odd that the moderator didn’t follow up,” Axelrod said.

Hillary Clinton has used the Democratic debates to lecture Barack Obama in matters of foreign policy. Today she got one from him about the influence of lobbyists.

Responding to a question about whether she would refuse to take money from lobbyists at a debate at the YearlyKos convention in Chicago, Clinton adopted a strident posture rarely seen in the course of her invariably disciplined campaign.

After John Edwards challenged the Democratic candidates never to take "a dime from Washington lobbyists," Clinton was asked why that was not a persuasive position.  read more »

John Del Cecato, a Democratic consultant working with David Axelrod's firm, confirmed that he met recently with Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion and Councilman Eric Gioia to discuss working on their potential 2009 citywide races.

Right now, Del Cecato and Axelrod have their hands full with another client, Barack Obama. As for the future, Del Cecato said he's made no decision about which clients to work with in 2009.

Carrion is looking at a possible mayoral run, while Gioia may get into the public advocate race.

Del Cecato worked on Carl McCall's 2002 gubernatorial campaign, did commercials for Andrew Cuomo's 2006 attorney general campaign, and was communications director for Freddy Ferrer's 2001 mayoral campaign.

Fresh off a tense exchange with Clinton strategist Mark Penn at a forum at Harvard last night, Obama strategist David Axelrod selectively embraced the words of the former President to make the case for his candidate - and against Hillary.

"Bill Clinton famously said that elections are about the future and he's right," Axelrod told me in an interview this morning. "He's absolutely right. And I think Barack Obama represents the future."

--Jason Horowitz

The company founded by Barack Obama's consultant David Axelrod is changing its name. Slightly.

AKP Message and Media is now AKP&D Message and Media, to acknowledge newly promoted partner John Del Cecato. He's the adman behind pieces for Freddy Ferrer in 2001, Carl McCall in 2002 and Andrew Cuomo in 2005 2006.  read more »

Full statement after the jump.

-- Azi Paybarah

Barack Obama—delivered feet-first on Oprah’s couch and tickled on Meet the Press and the  read more »

Democratic media man DMI's David Axelrod takes a turn as a blogger over at DMI Blog, and admits that he misses Trent Lott: "[A]t least the helmet-haired former cheerleader from Mississippi had the self-awareness to realize that majority leader was probably as far as he could go."

Wonkette has the press release of the day. Yes, it involves New York, and Communists.

And Room Eight turns to press criticism.

—Nicole Brydson

The business of politics has never been better for the people who make campaign advertisements.  read more »

The business of politics has never been better for the people who make campaign advertisements.New c  read more »

I look at a Madison Avenue adman, Ellis Verdi, who's getting into politics, taking on what he sees as "the same five hacks making the same five ads over and over." David Axelrod and David Garth fire back, while Ogilvy chief and Politicker icon Shelly Lazarus takes Verdi's side.

Terry Golway reviews the state of the Republican Party -- "As the wife of a man who has done time, Ms. Pirro does bring a certain perspective to law enforcement that none of her Democratic challengers can match" and also reviews Richard Reeves's new Reagan book.  read more »

Matt Schuerman tries to decipher the doings at the Javits Center, whose plans still seem determined in part by a stadium that doesn't exist. He does not, however, find anyone with -- in Joe Bruno's phrase -- his hand in his butt. He does find Richard Brodsky forcing Charlie Gargano to reconfigure the $1.4 billion expansion plan, and maybe put it on those train yards that the Jets abandoned.

And don't miss Jason Horowitz's inauguration day with Liza.

"David Axelrod, Media Advisor to the Ferrer Campaign, and Chad Clanton, Communications Consultant, will leave the campaign effective immediately due to strategic differences. " 'David Axelrod, with his long association with Fernando Ferrer, and Chad Clanton, Communications Consultant, share Fernando Ferrer's values and vision for New York City, and we wish them luck,' said Jen Bluestein, a spokesperson for the Ferrer Campaign."  read more »

Until now, the race for Mayor hasn't exactly seized the public's imagination, but at least two acute  read more »

As State Comptroller H.  read more »